Obama Said to Plan Release of Methane-Limit Rules on Thursday [View all]
The Obama administration will unveil on Thursday the first explicit U.S. regulation of methane emissions with a rule designed to reduce leaks of the potent greenhouse gas from oil wells.
The measure will require oil and gas companies to do a better job finding and plugging methane leaks at new wells, pumps, pipes, compressors and other equipment. It will be released by the Environmental Protection Agency, according to three people told of the plans who asked not to be identified prior to the formal announcement.
The primary ingredient of natural gas, methane is pound for pound 84 times more powerful than carbon dioxide at warming the atmosphere when measured over two decades. Previous regulations pared traditional air pollutants from some natural gas wells but did not specifically target methane.
"This is an incredibly important step," said Mark Brownstein, vice president of the Climate and Energy Program at the Environmental Defense Fund, in a phone interview earlier this month. "Methane is responsible for 25 percent of the warming that our planet is experiencing right now, and in the United States, the oil and gas industry is the largest source of methane emissions."
Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-11/obama-said-to-plan-release-of-methane-limit-rules-on-thursday
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